A November Morning Return
by downthedrain
Summary: Voldemort has been gone for a month. But not everyone enjoys sweet victory. One woman is re-living her last moments in her head, only to be saved by Albus Dumbledore's ever-present despair


Only one. Only one person could do it, with all her effort, her power. Only one could achieve what had been tarnished for so many years, what has been looked upon. Even if it meant her life.

That one person was me.

Noone would have guessed. I guess that was why I had been chosen. It wasn't as though it was destiny – me, I don't believe in destiny. I believe in power, and that was what made me special, different. That was what put me on the road to losing eveyone I value, my salvation. Power slavery, if you may.

Only one could achieve what was desired.

I couldn't.

I let everybody down. My friends, my father, Sirius. I couldn't even look them in the eye, no, I didn't want to. I didn't want to see my failure in the pain then engraved in their lonely faces.

So I left. Left everything behind, what was right, and ran.

That was all I was capable of, I guess. I could run from my fears.

But I couldn't run away from the truth. And that, was why I returned.

--

"She doesn't speak, Albus. It's been a month. She doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep. All she does is look ahead."

"I wonder what she sees." Albus Dumbledore's ever-calm voice wore a hint of anxiety, but after many years of practice, he had learnt to hide it well. He turned his large, blue eyes to the woman standing ahead him. Her face, contrasting the old man's, contained nothing but nervousness. Her eyes were glassy, and red to their cores, as though she had been crying for a long time, and was ready to break out any second.

"I'm so worried, Albus." She said, her voice trembling. "I can't reach her, noone can. I'm worried that," she took a deep breath, "she… she…"

She broke into tears. Albus Dumbledore put a consoling hand on her tiny shoulder. "Will you let me talk to her?" He said, more a command than a question. The woman shook her head.

"She… she's in that room." She said, pointing to the door on her left. Dumbledore walked to the door, and after a moment of hesitation, opened it in one quick motion.

Inside was very bright, with two windows on one wall, looking upon the grand mors below. Facing the windows was a purple, velvet armchair. Though the room was filled with sunlight, everything felt gloomy in it.

"Hello Harpy." Dumbledore said, looking at the woman sitting on the armchair, and as soon as he saw the look on her face, he understood what the woman had meant. Her blue eyes, which were directed at the moors below didn't seem to look there – they weren't pointed to any place, they were hollow, as if her ability to see, to look had been taken away. As if life had left them long ago.

She didn't respond.

"I am sorry to have delayed my… my visit." Dumbledore said, standing beside her. "I have been fairly busy." He paused, as though he was thinking things over.

"I can understand your despair, Harpy. You feel left out, you feel betrayed, you feel you have not accomplished, you feel you have failed. None of them are false pretenses. I will not go on ignoring the simple truth like everyone else just for the sake of our well being. You, just as I, have failed. And now, you and I are paying for our mistakes."

He put his wrinkled hand on the head of the armchair.

"You and I, we are the same. I always felt like I was too wise to make wrong decisions, and you, too perfect. The first time you let others down, that is hard to live up to. But, this…"

He walked in front of the armchair slowly. Kneeling before it, he held the woman's cold hands, trying to cut through her hollow stare.

"This is not how we face the truth, Harpy. If we don't stand them, noone can. You and I, we are survivors, we have to be. For others' sake. We have to stand strong for them. I…" He shut his eyes. "I lost the only person I truly cherished. I don't want you to." He opened his eyes again, now glassy. "Please." He whispered. "Please. I put you up to this. I can't ask for forgiveness. But you have to come back. Not to me, I swear. But you, just as I, are chosen. You have a life to fulfil."

Her eyes moved with the slightest motion.

"I lost everything, Harpy." Dumbledore whispered. "My life, is gone. Yours isn't. Not yet. There's still hope."

"Hope?"

The word echoed in the room, Dumbledore looked up. Her mouth, still open, looked barren and wild.

"For us?"

Then, she slowly shook her head.

That day, Dumbledore, burying his head on her lap, cried for the first time in fifty seven years, and for the last time in his life, for the hope he had lost on the way. His daughter, slowly stroking his head, didn't shed a tear. She still had his.


End file.
